Four years ago when I was commencing my business journey, my associate inquited from me who’s my idol in my christian business. My immediate response was - Rick Warren.
Pastor Rick Warren is extensively acknowledged as highly entrepreneurial. Being a minister of one of the largest evangelical churches in America, his business shrewdness is well known. Some people say that assuming Rick Warren was in the business world, he would qualify as a Chief executive of a Fortune 500 corporation.
His popular book Purpose Driven Church is now a model business book; an endorsed reading for Bank of America executives.
Whatever you perceive of Warren or religious beliefs, he has seen a consumer need out there and is expert how to fill it. And somebody you can consider as your christian business mentor.
Suppose we substitute the word “business” for “church” we can glean some business lessons from his book Purpose Driven Church. Here are some of them:
* Don’t try to make your enterprise grow. Rather, exert an effort to make your marketing healthy because if it’s healthy, it will get bigger effortlessly.
* Don’t be frightened to make it up as you go along. Warren quotes Mark Twain, who once said: “I knew a man who grabbed a cat by the tail and learned 40% more about cats than the man who didn’t.” A fit business is one that tries many stuff that don’t function well and has the scars to corroborate it.
* Don’t trap yourself in expensive infrastructure. For the initial 15 years of their church’s existence, they used 79 different facilities — schools, bank buildings, recreation halls, theater houses, restaurants, large homes, even a 2,300-seat tent. It was just in 1995 when the church had developed to 10,000 attendees that they erected their own building. “The shoe must never tell the foot how big it can grow,” he declares.
* Market big! “I’ve discovered that challenging people to a serious commitment actually attracts people rather than repels them”, says Warren. “The greater commitment we ask for, the greater response we get.”
* Trust and loyalty won’t overcome absence of skill and technology. Remarkable statement from a minister but how correct. “One of my favorite verses,” Warren says, “is Ecclesiastes 10:10: ‘If the ax is dull and its edge unsharpened, more strength is needed, but skill will bring success.’”
* Benefit from others’ successes. “Anytime I see a program working in another church [business], I try to extract the principle behind it and apply it in our church. I’m very grateful for the models that have helped me. I learned a long time ago that I don’t have to originate everything for it to work.”
* By no means start a new enterprise without first finding somebody to manage it. “If no leader emerged, we would wait on God’s timing before beginning a ministry,” states Warren.
* Purpose not only marks out what your marketing ought to do, it delimits what it ought not to do. “The secret to effectiveness is to know what really counts. Then do what really counts.”
* Nothing should precede the end of your enterprise. “Plans, programs and personalities don’t last,” says Warren. Only meaning lasts. It can heal your business, too. “Nothing will revive a discouraged church [business] faster than rediscovering its purpose.” So, where else can you find that Purpose? Nowhere else but from the christian business guide, the Bible.
